They said it had never happened before.
In the thousand-year history of the Kingdom of Aurum, every child awakened their Realm by their tenth birthday. A shimmering pocket dimension bound to their soul, a source of magic, a reflection of destiny.
But not Rayne.
At ten, he stood in the Awakening Circle beneath the alabaster domes of the Temple of Realms—surrounded by robed priests, spellweavers, and noble bloods from every corner of the kingdom. Candles floated midair in perfect rings. Sigils shimmered across marble floors. Magic hummed in every breath.
The Circle was ancient—older than the kingdom itself. A sanctified relic passed down by the first realm-walkers. It was said to react to the soul's truth.
Rayne stepped forward. Barefoot, in ceremonial white. His dark hair tied in a warrior's knot. His hands trembled as he clasped them together, palms forward, as tradition required.
Dozens of eyes stared.
His mother, Lady Elira, stood behind the high dais, back straight, lips tight. A Duchess of northern blood. Proud, cold, perfect.
The priest raised his staff. "Child of House Valeborne, born of Elira, speak your name."
"Rayne. Rayne Valeborne."
The staff struck stone.
A pulse of power surged.
The circle lit with silver-blue light.
And then... nothing.
No summoned realm. No rift. No sound.
A long, agonizing silence.
Whispers rippled through the room like a storm over water.
"Try again," someone muttered.
"He's too nervous."
"Maybe he's defective."
The priest hesitated, then struck the staff again. Harder. He chanted the invocation in Old Auric. The circle flared again—this time gold.
Still, nothing happened.
No beast. No vision. No pocket realm opened.
The silence became suffocating.
Rayne's throat dried. He looked up to his mother. Her eyes were hollow.
The priest lowered the staff. His voice wavered. "There is... no realm."
Gasps.
Lady Elira turned. Without a word, she walked away.
That was the beginning of Rayne's exile.
—
In the years that followed, he became a shadow in the Academy.
Realmless children weren't supposed to exist. The curriculum had no place for him. He couldn't enter realm combat simulations. Couldn't bond with a familiar. Couldn't train in dimensional weaving or soul channeling.
But he was allowed to remain. Only because of his bloodline. The Valeborne name still meant something.
He walked the corridors like a ghost.
Students spat at his feet. Instructors skipped his name. The library logs listed his realm access as "denied."
They called him Hollow. Curseborn. A Blight.
He once found a crude carving on his bunk: "Kill the realm-thief."
He never told anyone.
He never cried.
Instead, he read.
He broke into the Restricted Stacks and studied forbidden texts—histories of failed awakenings, obscure magical anomalies, theories of soul rupture, shadow-channeling.
He trained his body when others practiced casting.
He memorized runes, practiced silent incantations, studied swordwork.
Because in the quiet hours between dusk and dawn, something whispered to him. In dreams. In cold winds. In the deep shadows beneath the dormitories.
"You are not realm-less. You are unclaimed."
He began to believe it.
—
At fifteen, he snuck into the school's central archive and uncovered something strange.
A mention in a pre-kingdom age scroll. A phenomenon known as the Nullborn.
Souls that did not birth realms.
Souls that devoured them.
He barely escaped when the wardens discovered him. Spent a week in solitary.
But he remembered every word.
Two years later, on the eve of his seventeenth birthday, he slipped away from the academy with nothing but a blade, a lantern, and a torn page.
It held a map.
To a ruin older than the kingdom.
There, something waited.
Not a realm.
But a reckoning.